Trebuchet
by atoafriend
Summary: Kate Beckett is new at Shibusen, but everyone already has a partner. When she's stuck with Rick Castle on missions, she'll learn more about herself as a human and meister-and solve the greatest mystery of her life-with the help of her new weapon!
1. Chapter 1

A little something I really really really REEEAAALLLY wanted to type. I just thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to have a Castle/Soul Eater crossover? That'd be so AWESOME!"

And here it is, they byproduct of my life (or lack thereof). Anybody familiar with the Castle plot can tell where this is going...

Just as a side note, characters will be slightly OOC and plot stuff slighty AU in order to work out the crossoever. And this story will be the debut of my all-purpose OC! (Coming soon...! :D )

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_- - - {Trebuchet - **Chapter 1, the new girl**}_

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Kate knew she was what most would consider "attractive". It was only until a few weeks ago when she found out just HOW attractive she might actually be.

"You'd think they'd be used to it by now."

She looked up to see another student standing next to her in the classroom, with a rather preppy outfit and long, silver hair. "I'm afraid the boys do get a bit rowdy at times," the girl said, glancing at the small knot of them on the other side of the room. "Um...do you mind if I sit here?"

"No, not at all," Kate said, and the girl took her seat next to her. She had been sitting by herself in the back row for a while now; she was glad for the company.

"Where are you from?"

"New York."

"The city?"

"Yes."

The girl smiled, impressed, when a blond boy came up from behind her. "Woah, all the way from the Empire State, huh?" he said, grinning. "It's a big change from there to here in Nevada, but Death City's where all the fun is."

"Oh, this is my partner, Mark Stein," the girl said, motioning to the boy.

"And this is MY partner, Annete Dupont," the boy added, nodding to the girl.

Kate smiled again. "Nice to meet you both. I'm Kate Beckett." She looked at the boy, Mark. "Are you a weapon?"

"Yeah, I turn into a flail. An here's the meister," he said. "You a weapon, too?"

"No, I'm a meister. Sort of."

"You don't have a partner yet?"

"No, I've only been here a few weeks. It seems almost everyone's paired off already," Kate said. Everyone in the school traveled in even groups of two or more.

"Don't worry about it too much, they'll find someone who's still available and assign them to you until next semester," An said. "Actually, that's how Mark and I got partnered."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it was kinda haphazard," Mark said. "We just got tossed together on an extra-curricular assignment and it turned out our souls synched pretty well."

"An extra-curricular assignment?" Kate asked.

"They give those out every now and then. Put some teams together at random and send 'em out to do stuff to keep our senses sharp," Mark explained. "It's likely they'll give one to ya, too."

"But I don't have a partner yet."

"They usually find somebody and assign them with us," An said. "It's usual for people who haven't gotten a partner yet to be grouped with another pair and go on an assignment. That way they can still at least get field experience."

"Or a partner," Mark chimed in. "G'morning, Mrs. Zimmer!" he added when the teacher walked over to them.

"Morning, Mark," she said. "Speaking of extra-curricular assignments, Shinigami-sama has one for you."

"Really?"

"Yes. He's asked that you, Annete, and Kate see him in the Death Room after lunch."

"We're going to the Death Room?" Kate asked quietly when the teacher walked away.

"Yup. It's a pretty cool place," Mark grinned, the contents of his plate completely wiped out. "It's got this archway shaped like guillotines, and the whole place is like an indoor desert with all these weird crossed sticks stuck in the ground here and there."

Kate frowned slightly. "Are there things buried under those crosses?"

"There're rumors, but they're probably just there for decoration. It's called the Death Room for a reason, I guess."

"Hm.

"Alright, class, settle down." Mark scrambled into his seat, his action mimicked by the group of boys nearby and other stray students in the class. "Today we'll be going into the basics of Soul Perception..."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"Mark, how is it that you are on the brink of failure in every other class EXCEPT the most difficult concept lesson on Soul Perception?" Annete sighed as the trio walked down the hallway to the Death Room. "I must admit, nothing Mrs. Zimmer said was comprehensible."

"Same here," Kate said. Her head was throbbing from trying to outstare the air during their previous lesson.

"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad," Mark shrugged

"Don't let it get to your head too soon," Annete scolded.

"Well, true, 'cause that other guy was breezing through it like a naturaloh hey, speak of the devil!" The group arrived at the platform of the Death Room; Kate recognized the other three boys as the same ones who had been joking around in class.

"Well hellooooo, everyone~!" Shinigami chimed as the group took their places on the platform. "Thanks for coming in, guys! As you all know, you'll be going on an extra-curricular assignment together, and hopefully we'll get some good outcomes from that. Before I give you the details of your assignment, why don't we all introduce ourselves?"

"Hello," Annete said, politely but timidly. "My name is Annete Dupont."

"Mark Stein, IV," Mark said. "I'm An's partner."

"Kate Beckett, meister," Kate said, her tone slightly more confident than Annete's.

"Yo," said one of the boys standing across from them; the shorter one. "I'm Kevin Ryan. This is my weapon."

"Javier Esposito," the dark-skinned boy said, responding to the other boy's indication.

"And I'm Rick Castle," said the third boy. "I'm a weapon!"


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the long delay! Being in the all-school musical takes it's toll (including singing karaoke in front of all your friends and enemies for the cast party)…but now it's spring break, so more time to get so totally wasted on the internet! x3

Well, without further ado, ch. 2 is up!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_- - - {Trebuchet - **Chapter 2, "Beckett, just Beckett"**}_

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"…and then-you won't believe this!-then the other guy just swings that scythe at him, and he does this totally AWE-SOME Matrix thing and completely NAILS him in the…uh…yeah…and he just HITS the ground, and boy, lemme tell ya, that was some serious kick-ass move he just pulled on the dude; it's like that one time when Esposito and I went after this one chick after Ryan totally got BOMBED…!"

"Tell me, is he always like this?" Kate asked drily. Her friends Annete and Mark ended up being assigned to another mission out-of-town, leaving her alone with the three other boys. She missed them already.

"Yeah, unfortunately. You get used to it after a while," Esposito shrugged, continuing to walk along the alley.

Kate raised her eyebrow. "Really." It wasn't a question; it was more a dry statement.

"Actually, it really isn't that bad all the time. Every now and then he'll start telling some really good stories; and the great thing is, he _never_ tells the same one twice," Ryan said, ignoring Castle's next anecdote about something that involved him, a cat, and Esposito's underwear. "Personally, I think it's just his way of saying 'Hi, how are ya?' and getting to know someone better."

"C'mon, bro, he needs to tell stories about my underwear to LEARN about people?" Esposito chimed in. "He can just LOOK at the person and know them almost as well as their mother."

This statement intrigued Kate. "What do you mean by that?"

"There's only one reason why he's failing Shibusen but still attending. Okay, well, two, actually: one, his family is stinkin' rich, and two, there ain't never been ANYONE who's better at Soul Perception than Castle," Ryan said in a soft voice as Castle progressed to another story about a rather obnoxious fail on his part at Tim Horton's. "He probably knows more about a person than they do about themselves."

"Sometimes I think that's why he never bothers with his classes," Esposito added. "He knows so much that it's boring him to kingdom come. He's finally decided to drop out after this semester ends."

"What?" It took Kate a moment to realize the word came from her mouth.

"Well, it's not that surprising. He doesn't have a partner, so he hardly ever goes on missions to put his abilities to use."

"Can't he just do solo missions?"

Ryan shook his head. "That's a no-can-do. His weapon form requires a meister; I don't think it's possible for a gun to shoot itself."

Kate couldn't think of anything to say. To put so much into such an education at Shibusen only to drop out…and his weapon form was a gun…just like what she wanted…

"Yo, were here."

Castle's chattering immediately cut off mid-sentence as the group slowed their pace. It was daytime, which made navigating easy, but that also meant the Kishin egg would be on high-alert.

"What are you guys doing?" Castle asked. Kate nearly jumped in surprise: those were the first civilized, coherent words she had heard from Castle since they left Shibusen.

"What do you mean, 'what are we doing', the Kishin egg's over here!" Esposito snapped quietly.

Castle shook his head. "No, it's not," he said in a surprisingly serious voice. "It's not here. This is WAY too conspicuous."

" 'Conspicuous' has nothing to do with where a Kishin egg would hide," Kate said. "Shinigami said it was here, so we wait here."

"Tell me, Katie, are you always this serious?" Castle asked in a sudden change of voice.

"I-what-…" Kate stuttered. "No, Castle, focus on the mission! And _don't call me that_!"

"Well, what do I call you?" he asked innocently. "Kate?"

"Beckett, just Beckett. Now _shush_!"

"But that's so-"

"I don't care; you're calling me Beckett," Kate said, irritated. "And can you _please_ take this seriously?"

"I'm tellin' you guys: _it's not there_!" Castle persisted.

"Then where is it?" Ryan asked, cutting off Kate's next statement about shutting up.

Castle looked around for a moment, then pointed at an adjacent alley.

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! It's right there; I can _see_ it!"


End file.
